1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to financial analysis and, more particularly, to a method for creating and processing data and other information using natural language formulas.
2. Description of the Related Art
Spreadsheets are commonly employed in performing financial (numerical) analysis. In a typical spreadsheet program, such as Microsoft's Excel® program, a user creates formulas and inputs data into a spreadsheet template on a cell-by-cell basis. While this cell-by-cell spreadsheet allows a great deal of flexibility, maintaining data and equations within the individual cells has many significant limitations and disadvantages.
One disadvantage of a typical spreadsheet program is that it is complicated and cumbersome to create formulas for individual cells. For example, formulas in spreadsheet programs typically refer to other cell locations. As a result, formulas must be checked and updated whenever the referenced cells are moved, modified, amended, deleted or supplemented. In addition, the cell-by-cell format requires considerable storage space, even when the formula is the same for each cell.
It is also difficult to maintain historical changes when using a spreadsheet, whether in paper or electronic format. When records are kept electronically, one must maintain the cell-by-cell formatted equations and the data that is referenced therein (which may be stored in separate spreadsheets or other electronic files). Thus, when creating complex financial analyses, with multiple what-if? type scenarios, maintenance of this information becomes inefficient, complex and costly. Likewise, it is no easy task to generate or maintain paper copies of such information, since multiple paper files would need to be printed (the spreadsheet must be printed in a manner that reveals the equations, the spreadsheet must be printed in a manner that shows the results, and all of the referenced data must be printed). At present, spreadsheets do not store cell-by-cell formulas in databases for the same reason.
Reviewing and updating a spreadsheet is often burdensome for the user. While it is possible to print and review spreadsheet formulas, the user must then contend with many pages of detail. Furthermore, a spreadsheet's cell-by-cell technology requires the user to change the formula as the source data changes. For instance, if an analysis requires 100 rows, and a new set of data is 120 rows, spreadsheet users typically must manually manipulate all of the dependent formulas. Obviously, this is a time consuming and error prone process.